Forbes CommunityVoice™ allows professional fee-based membership groups ("communities") to connect directly with the Forbes audience by enabling them to create content – and participate in the conversation – on the Forbes digital publishing platform. Each topic-based CommunityVoice™ is produced and managed by the group.

Opinions expressed within Forbes CommunityVoice™ are those of the participating individuals.

Flow Hack: Take The Guesswork Out Of Peak Performance

Camille Preston, Ph.D., PCC, is a psychologist, speaker, author, and founder and CEO of CreateMoreFlow.com

Shutterstock

With advancements in neuroscience, we now better understand peak performance and what specifically produces that coveted state of flow. While what gets you into flow is deeply personal, and what you create is exceptional and unique, there are some common tenets for what creates peak performance.

Benefits Of Finding Your Flow

Flow is good for the bottom line at work and at home. In flow, we are 500% more productive and up to 700% more creative. The people who experience the most flow also report being the happiest.

Since returning to work after my second baby, I have been trying to hack flow — trying to reliably recreate peak performance — and do so in short, scheduled spurts (when the kids are sleeping).

Like everyone reading this blog, my life and my days are overfull. There are more demands on me and my time than there are hours in a day. I run my own business and have two young children. Earlier this year, my mother totaled her car and broke her neck, and my childless, widowed uncle has been navigating cancer. While my marriage is modern -- yes, my husband is very involved and a true partner — the bulk of household planning still falls to me.

While I am maxed out, there is nothing I want to give up.So, I am also actively pursuing new ways to manage all my commitments. And don’t tell me I can’t have it all! I am committed to finding a way to have it all and manage it all, too.

Flow-hacking is my new mindset for rethinking how to live and redesigning how I operate to experience more time in flow — at home, with my kids, at work and in life. I want more time when I feel great and am creating at my most optimized.

How To Create Bandwidth

Flow requires the ability to think deeply and this requires bandwidth. Your brain is like a computer — the more programs that are open, the slower it processes.

Take stock of what is inhibiting your ability to think deeply. Figure out what you can do to permanently free up bandwidth. This may sound difficult, but fortunately, there are many things you can do:

1. Create a capture system.

There are more things demanding your attention than you have the capacity to retain. Simple psychology says that we can hold seven (plus or minus two) pieces of information in our short-term memory (not 700 plus or minus 200 items, which is what is often expected of us in modern life). At work, I have one document that captures all my task-related thoughts. On-the-go, I use an app called Captio to capture thoughts. At home, I use Wunderlist.

2. Optimize daily.

Sometimes you'll find yourself having to optimize twice daily. Just because something is on the list doesn’t mean it is worth your time, energy or attention. What can be eliminated, automated, delegated, procrastinated or concentrated?

3. Build systems once, use many times.

Anything can be improved upon. Create systems around any and all reoccurring tasks. Chunk together like-minded tasks. On Thursday mornings, I line everyone up (except my husband) and check/cut nails. Once a week, I open all the vitamins and load them into daily containers. By capturing all the emails I need to write and writing them all within the same work sprint, I am faster, more effective and more on point. This helps me avoid time-sucking mistakes — the type we all make. Before I started to optimize my time, I would sometimes open and start an email and then close it again over 20 times.

4. Know yourself to optimize environments.

Understanding who you are, what your strengths are, and how you perform at your best can be a life-long journey. It can also be life-changing. I know that I work best in quiet, clean, well-lit and well-ventilated spaces. I learned this the hard wayin graduate school as I procrastinated and cleaned the dirt floor basement of our rental home prior to writing my comprehensive exams.

The takeaway here is simple:

• Break down projects into their most essential parts

• Optimize stimulus/optimize conditions

• Minimize distractions

If you do this, you’ll already be at least three steps closer to creating more flow in your work and life.